Yanomami - Music for Choir and Guitar

Rating: * * * * *

Verdict: Two adventures off the beaten concert trail from adventurous, faith-fuelled English label.

Signum Classics has only been in the classical CD game for just over a decade but in that short space of time the English label has created a catalogue of more than 150 titles and made its presence felt on the awards circuit.

Although Signum's repertoire does venture on to the main highway, with Dohnanyi conducting Brahms and Mackerras wielding his baton for Schubert, the label is better known for the offbeat and unexpected, such as David Carlson's recent opera of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Even when the music is your standard Bach and Beethoven, as in pianist James Rhodes' recent recital disc, the album's title Razor Blades Little Pills and Big Pianos is provocative and market-savvy.

Yanomami is a collaboration between Coro Cervantes, a choir devoted to Iberian music, and guitarist Fabio Zanon. The title comes from the final piece, by Marlos Nobre, in which the singers back up tenor Julian Stocker with the sort of sounds that might have strayed in from Ligeti, although most of the offerings on this release are not going to ruffle conservative sensibilities.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Romanceros Gitao is a chain of soulful gypsy songs while a set of Piezas Sacras by the late Argentinian composer Fernando Moruja offers spiritual reflection in rich, resonant harmonies.

One question remains: why is Carlos Surinach's Via Crucis sung in English translation when the original Spanish would have injected even more drama and passion?

Facades, Lara James' collection of new saxophone music, mostly with piano, should strike a ready response with those who enjoyed the recent visit of saxophonist Amy Dickson. The combination of soprano sax and piano in Rodney Rogers' Lessons of the Sky inevitably reminds one of the Herbie Hancock/Wayne Shorter partnership and Rogers' piece could easily find a place on the jazzmen's 1+1 album.

Two sonatas for the alto instrument show Welsh composer Christopher Painter winning over the older and more eclectic Robert Muczynski and James is particularly adept at maintaining a tonal blend through Painter's demanding score.

Last year, Amy Dickson brought us Philip Glass in concert; on disc, James, with Sinfonia Viva, offers the American composer's Facades, a laid-back Nocturne that, for many, will define the appeal of this winning collection.

William Dart

 

Pictured above: Yanomami. Photo / Supplied